


Archival Modernization: In Person

by inkbert



Series: Archival Modernization [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Humor, Scientist Wrangler Darcy Lewis, Stark Industries London
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 07:44:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7213753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkbert/pseuds/inkbert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After becoming friends through SI email and other social media, Steve has to come clean to Darcy about his identity, apologize, and prove to her that he's not interested in Jane's science, he's interested in her. It turns out other parties are in it for the science though, and 'Grant' is the least of Darcy's worries, she's just super glad to see Captain America. The SI London team doesn't care who he is, they will take him down if he upsets Miss Lewis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Clutching the curling iron she literally _never_ uses, but packed to haul across the Atlantic ocean anyway, Darcy is really beginning to question her life choices. The problem is, she always has good reasons for the choices she makes. They even look good in hindsight, which can apparently be a bitch for other people.

Take the curling iron for example. Not the whole bringing it to England thing, wtf had she been thinking? But the reason she’s currently holding it, ready to brandish it against thug numero tres.

See, she went for a knife in the kitchen. The knives might have been shit against those potatoes, but humans were squishier. But then she remembered that self-defense person who went on Ellen, who said to never carry a weapon that could easily be turned against you. A taser and pepper spray could be quickly deployed against an assailant, the guru had said, but a knife or even a baseball bat could become a new weapon in your possibly more skilled attacker’s hands.

Darcy doesn’t have to put her stellar observation skills to use to determine that her attackers are more skilled at breaking and entering and assault than she is. So she shoved the knives into the oven and ran for the back of the apartment.

She took out thug numero uno, who was rocking a thready creep ‘stache, with her surge protector. That fucker was heavy enough every time she stubbed her toe on it, she figured it would be heavy enough to do some damage when he found her hiding in her wardrobe.

It did.

She’d meant to save the taser for last. She had the element of surprise in the beginning, but by the end it would be down to skills she didn’t have. But thug numero dos came so fast on the heels of uno that she panicked.

Now she’s cornered in the bathroom with her curling iron. She’s wondering if anything else at hand will make a better weapon, but the adrenaline is fucking with her so can’t get her thought process to follow logical patterns. Her brain flashes from one thing to the next. Tampons? Not useful. Toothpaste! Nope. Toilet paper, she could throw it at him. Not much of a distraction, and he could just swat it out of the way and shoot her. Mascara, hair brush, shampoo, razor. None of it useful.

The real problem is that she backed herself into a corner. But she can do this. No point in being an asshole to herself now, constructive criticism or GTFO.

Should she plug it in? She’d probably just burn herself, and she totally doesn’t have enough time anyway. Darcy tucks herself against the wall behind the door. There’s just enough space between where the door would sweep open and the tub to keep her from getting smashed, and maybe she could shove it shut on him and startle him.

Anything to keep him off guard.

She flinches when the wall spits out powder and little bits of white stuff, blinks stupidly for just a second, taking in the four holes. Then she realizes and hits the floor just as more bullets come through, this time right where she’d been standing.

The door hits her when it burst open, and it fucking hurts. Her arm, her ribs. The pain is shocking, and no matter how hard she tries to make herself ignore it and pay attention, she can’t.

She’s still reeling when he drags her out into the bedroom and pulls her up by her right arm.

He’s like Andre the giant or something, and lifts her by that one arm, leaving her dangling in front of him, still gasping with pain. Her eyes water.

“You stupid bitch.” He looks over at his friends and grimaces. “You stu-“

He chokes on the curling iron, and Darcy really fucking crams it in there. She sees his gag reflex kick in. Her hands scrabble at his stomach as he drops her, then find purchase on the cold handle of a gun.

She shoots in him the throat, which is exposed as he pulls the curling iron out, and he goes down.

This one, this one looks dead. Blood is actually squirting out of his neck, and he’s not moving. Darcy feels dizzy, like that time she’d gone to a mountain cabin with a friend and hadn’t been prepared for the altitude.

The problem here is tased thug is starting to twitch back to life, and concussion thug is starting to moan. And the noise from the living room.

Is that real? The crashing. The yells. It sounds real.

Why would she hallucinate that? Deep breaths, Lewis! Deep breaths and solutions!

Out is good. The window leads out onto a fire escape, but the fucker won’t open. She’d tried back when the radiator’s last days had meant sweltering heat. Now though, there are bullet holes and blood and the window is the last thing she’s gonna worry about so she puts her trusty surge protector through it.

Speed is her main concern, so she tries to push out the most pressing of the jagged edges, but then she’s climbing out onto the metal fire escape. A bubble of laughter escapes as she notes this fire escape cannot be up to code.

It lurches and sways worse than a fun house floor. Ladder. Fucking ladder won’t budge.

She doesn’t really think it through because the ground is a long way down and it’s scary as fuck. She just climbs onto the railing and jumps to the fire escape across the alley from her own.

This window won’t open either, and her surge protector is long gone, broken to bits down below.

She puts her boot through it. Pain lets her know that it didn’t go as smoothly as she might have wished, but the resulting hole is large enough for her to pull her leg back out without any more damage. She uses the heel of her boot to break out more of the glass, and then she’s climbing through another window.

Running through the apartment she mostly sees a blur of piles of debris, clothing, and junk. The front door is unlocked, and that’s kind of funny. She just broke into a place with its front door left unlocked.

Hide or run? If she hides, it’s gonna be easy for the thugs to know which building to search. If she runs, she’s gonna be easy to spot on the street.

“Guess you’re not watching right now, Heimdall, ‘cause I would really love a little thunder and lightning vengeance right now.”

She takes the stairs, because she’s not gonna hunker down and wait in fear, jumping at every sound. Her nerves can’t take that shit. Action. Action is good, even if her leg hurts like a bitch and running is turning into hobbling.

Still, she thinks she’s doing pretty damn good four flights down when the metal door at the landing bursts open.

It’s two new thugs and they both point their guns at her. The jig is up, Darcy thinks.

Then the thug closest to the door is missing his head and the second one has a large piece of metal sticking out of his neck. Nearly Headless Nick falls to the floor the same as his buddy.

“Darcy?” Tall, blonde and smokin’ hot steps through the door. He’s breathing hard, his chest heaving with each breath. And he looks _so concerned_.

“Holy banana balls.” Darcy flings herself down the last two steps, limps over the corpse thugs, and literally throws herself at Steve Rogers aka Captain fucking America. “Am I glad to see you. Sorry for mauling you but I’m not gonna stop.”

“Darcy, are you okay?” He asks, and he doesn’t seem to mind her clinging. Maybe he’s used to it. People probably always cling to him like lemmings after he rescues them. He just drags her across the landing to the other door, yanks it open, and walks through.

“I’m fine, mostly. But maybe we should leave? In case more of them come?”

“You’re bleeding.” He touches her arm.

“Ow! What the fuck, man? Who does that?” She steps back from him, but apparently her legs up and decided that now that Captain America is here they’re punching the time clock.

He catches her, hands cupping both of her elbows and folding her against him.

“We need to get out of here. I’ve got a car outside.” He says, but he looks down at her with something like apology in his eyes. And he says it like more of an offer. How nice that he doesn’t just assume that Darcy doesn’t have an invisible jet parked around the corner.

“You are the man with the plan.”

He carries her with one arm. That is seriously impressive and distracting, which is why she’s not paying much attention to what she’s saying. Something about how she never has plans, but she just lets her mouth babble right on.

There is an upside to being impossible to embarrass and as her mother liked to say, no sense of decency and unable to claim a lick of social tact.

But then he tucks himself around her, and extends his other arm. Bullets don’t ping. Not like in the movies. But she can hear gunfire, and holes keep appearing in the walls around them. Worse is when they ricochet off the cement walls, spraying jagged chunks.

She shuts up then, her mouth snapping shut painfully hard.

The recoil of the gun does nothing to him like it did to her. His hand doesn’t shoot back, his arm doesn’t rock in its socket. She can just feel it, like a ripple, come up his arm and across his chest. But his left arm is steady around her, and his shoulders hunch over her.

The gunfire stops again, and through the entire encounter she doesn’t feel like she’s in danger. Which is stupid, because he’s not in his spiffy uniform, which probably has the super high tech equivalent of Kevlar built in, and he doesn’t have his spangly shield.

He’s wearing normal clothes.

“Careful, careful.” He says, but she doesn’t know if he’s talking to her or himself as he deposits her in the passenger side of an orange, low slung car. He practically has to kneel on the sidewalk, but he transfers her from his arms into the seat without a single jostle.

Darcy immediately wants to crawl right back out of the car. Away from him and sitting in the unfamiliar car all of the fear comes flying back with a vengeance. She sees three vans, and isn’t it always vans? One is completely unmarked, the other two have the name of a cleaning company on the side.

When he gets into the car only a second later, Darcy has somewhat gathered a few of her thoughts. The most pressing one is dealt with first.

“You let me keep the gun!?” She momentarily debates between throwing it out the window, then turns to set it in the nonexistent back seat. So she carefully puts it on her floor mat and pulls her legs up into the seat. Which is fucking painful.

“Careful. That’s really bleeding.” He looks over at her, a deep line between his brows. He glances back at her again, but focuses on the road. “Can you take off your sweater? Put some pressure on that leg?”

Darcy looks down at herself. Both arms are bleeding, the left one quite steadily from a gash on her arm. Thinking it’s from the windows, she lifts her arm closer and realizes it’s a hole.

There is a hole in her arm. She has been shot. “Oh, damn. Damn. I got shot in my Thor shirt. That is not supposed to happen.”

“Darcy, pressure on the leg. Can you get your sweater off?”

Darcy shifts her arms, still kind of stuck on the bloody hole. “Nope. Nope. Not happening. See, I’d have to take off this bag first, and then the sweater, and that’s a lot of moving these arms are not doing.”

She bites her lips as the burn only intensifies as he goes over a shitty part in the road. “Do you do this all the time? I’m feeling like a major wimp here, sitting next to you, but this really, really hurts. Oh, man. It hurts.”

“It’s okay, Darcy. I called in back up. They’re with us now, and we’re almost to the hospital.”

He reaches over the center console, and for a second she’s distracted by the buttons. Why are there so many? Can this car fucking fly? If anyone had a flying car, it would be Captain America. Then he takes her hand, wtf? Oh. He presses it against her leg. Hard. Which hurts. But fades pretty quickly, even if it is gross to watch her blood run between her fingers.

He takes his hand back to shift gears. It leaves the gear shift, then the steering wheel bloody.

“Why is your flying car orange?” That makes no damn sense.

Neither does him telling her in, frankly a mean voice, to stay awake. Bossy much?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably me done for the day. I'll be back tomorrow, most likely posting the conclusion here.


	2. Chapter 2

“No, she’s –“ Steve cuts off, because what can he really say that will make them let him back? The truth is that she’s his friend. Kind of. Because she’s angry at him, but he cares. He really cares, and the thought of leaving her alone after that – Well, it’s not going to happen.

“I’m staying with her.” He says, in what Tony calls his Captain America voice. Clint says he has to use it responsibly, and the nurse does falter. Where she’d been firm before, she now looks between Darcy and Steve uncertainly.

Then Darcy flings out a bloody hand and clenches it in the fabric of his shirt. “I will do down with this ship.”

“Of course, sir.” The nurse hesitates at the end. She’s uncertain of what to call him, which tells him she’s recognized him.

Steve doesn’t care. His skin feels too tight in the harsh hospital lighting, and he hates the sounds of the machines, the smell of medicine and industrial grade cleaner. 

“Stay right with me, okay?” The woman tells him seriously. “You can’t get in the way. She needs help.”

“Goddamn alien lights. My bag, do you have my bag?” Darcy murmurs as they wheel her down the hall. She tugs at his shirt and Steve reaches down and touches her hip, because that’s the only place he can reach without blocking some of the many arms reaching around her. He assures he that he does have her bag, a heavy black messenger sized one that she had clung to.

They let him stay with her, even if he gets looks over and over again. It is obviously not standard operating procedure, but no one tries to kick him out. So he crams himself against a wall as five people hover over her. Her clothes are cut away, a green cardigan with big black buttons, a pink Thor shirt, and black yoga pants.

Steve feels a moment of discomfort then. Her underwear are lacy and pale blue with a small hole in the lace on the right hip, her bra is dark purple and bold against her pale skin. But then he watches one of the nurses wipe at a two inch cut on her stomach, and that’s all he can see.

He catalogs her injuries. The two inch cut on her stomach which receives four stiches, eighteen stitches in her right leg, three and six to close up the front and back of the bullet wound, a butterfly bandage on her cheek, another three on her right elbow, chin and left knee. 

They bring in an x-ray machine for her ribs, but find that they’re only bruised. 

Slowly, the hubbub ends. They’ve dosed her with medication through an IV and she’s long since stopped muttering. Mostly she’d been asking for him to ‘hero up’ and save her and complaining about the needles.

In fact, Steve thinks she’s out cold when the first nurse comes back in. 

“Okay.” The woman looks down at a tablet in her hands. “She’s good to go. We’re filling her scripts now. Your team has been talking with hospital security, so I think everything is all straightened out.”

“Do we need to talk to anyone on our way out?” Steve asks, because it’s obvious that Tony, or at least Tony’s money is involved here. Darcy had been immediately whisked away from the emergency room up several levels and through an enclosed pedestrian bridge to a very swanky unit.

“No. Everything is taken care of.” She looks over as one of the SHIELD operatives Steve had seen comes to the door. “I’ll just go ahead and head out. Here, this has all of her test results and instructions for care.”

“I just take this?” Steve asks in surprise as she pushes the tablet into his hands. It’s a Starkpad. 

“Those were our instructions from Stark Industries.”

He takes the Starkpad and she slips out of the room, giving the SHIELD agent a wide-berth.

“Hello Captain Rogers. I’m Agent Rothschild. We’ve arranged for an escort for you and we can discuss a guard detail if that is necessary.” The agent stands straight and still, only his arm moving as he lifts a cell phone. “Romanov.”

“You’re gone for less than twenty-four hours.” Natasha says through the phone speaker. Rothschild steps back out into the hall. “And you told me that this wasn’t a mission.”

“It wasn’t. Coincidence.”

“I’d ask you if this has anything to do with your digital pen pal, but it’s pretty obvious. We’d like it if one of us could come out to be back up.”

“No.” Steve glances at the girl on the hospital bed. Her hair is dark and bold against the white sheets, her lips are parted as she breathes deeply and steadily. “I’m headed back to Tony’s place, which is just as secure as the tower. I’ve got this SHIELD detail. I have plenty of tactical back up, and emotionally I need to figure this out on my own.”

“Are you saying we can’t help because we’re friends with you?” Natasha asks.

“That’s bullshit!” Clint yells in the background. Steve even hears a rumble of voices.

“Is everyone there?”

“Yes.” 

Steve sighs. Darcy had told him they were his friends. Natasha, of all people, had thrown it out there. But he really does need this. “I appreciate it. I really do. But I, well, this is something I gotta do myself. And I think I’ve got a handle on it. On the important parts.”

“The important parts not being the attack force you just handled and their reasons for being in your mystery pen pal’s apartment?” There isn’t any judgement in her tone, like maybe she understands. Like she doesn’t like it, but she understands.

“Exactly.” Steve answers, because it’s the truth. Attack teams and guns and strategy are all regular parts of his life. Regardless of if he’s okay or not. Darcy and what they had, the way it made him feel real again, that was the important part. He didn’t care about what she might be mixed up in. “You’re a good friend, Romanov.”

“Stay alive and if you’re not back here in five days we’re sending someone.” She says and hangs up.

Steve coordinates the escort to Tony’s London town house with Rothschild. The hospital offers transport including a stretcher for Darcy, some kind of high end ambulance, but Steve turns it down.

He lifts her carefully from the bed, wishing for his shield to brace under and provide her more protection if they’re attacked again before he can reach the safety of Tony’s house.

Rothschild’s team of six do a solid job though, and it helps keep Steve calm. There are also four security representatives from the London office of Stark Industries. Probably Tony’s doing. 

They refuse to be intimidated by the SHIELD team and seem dedicated to Darcy. The passenger seat in Tony’s car is bloody, but one of the SI guards quickly spreads a sheet over it. The seat has a lever to recline, but it barely moves an inch.

Tony’s sports cars are often like that. Extremely impractical. They’d moved the car into a secure underground garage, so he doesn’t have to worry about exposure. Steve tries to make her as comfortable as possible before buckling her in. He puts the black bag at her feet. 

When he turns around he sees the three members of the team not dedicated to looking out watching him. 

He wonders how long it will take the gossip to reach across the ocean.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve hardly sleeps. It’s like he’s back in the war, sleeping with one eye open, always aware. Except instead of listening for enemies creeping closer to the trenches, he’s listening for Darcy’s feet on the floor.

She’d fallen asleep in the car and hadn’t woken when he transferred her first inside to a couch, and then later up to a bed in one of the many guest rooms.

It’s strange being in the Stark Mansion. Some rooms are exactly the way he remembered them from the war. Others are so altered they’d be almost unrecognizable if it weren’t for the marble floors and ornate crown molding.

The new décor clashes with the old and it’s obvious the changes were made almost maliciously. Or perhaps rebelliously, given what Steve knows about Tony’s relationship with Howard. It’s also obvious that Tony hasn’t spent time here in a long time, not the least because of the absence of the Jarvis interface.

Steve finds himself unexpectedly missing the AI. Jarvis is accessible through Steve’s phone and is monitoring and controlling the security system, but the AI is greatly limited.

Regardless, Steve wakes instantly alert when his phone chimes next to his head. It’s the SHIELD agents posted outside, reporting that more security personnel from SI had arrived, accompanied by a pushy person from the business department.

Tad Weatherby.

“Mr. Weatherby is refusing to leave until he has seen Miss Lewis personally, and is prepared to call the head of London SI, a Ms. Escondido.” The SHIELD agent sounds annoyed. “Want me to take him in?”

“No. I’ll come out.”

Is the attentiveness of the Stark security teams indicative of an unsavory interest in Darcy? Or Darcy’s boss’ work? With Darcy passed out, Steve had opened the messenger bag. It had been filled with three laptops, two hard drives, and two handheld devices that seemed extremely fragile and completely foreign. Darcy had either thought that her attackers were after her boss’ work, or had known she was abandoning her home.

Steve can’t shake the feeling of wrongness he’s carried the past few months. He’s unsettled by Fury’s continuing subterfuge, and it’s resulted in a constant wariness and suspicion that Steve had never claimed before.

So the extreme interest from SI London is regarded as suspect. Especially since Darcy had always downplayed her actual connection to SI. She wasn’t even technically employed by them, so why was their security team present last night? Why is someone from the business office here today?

Stark security and SHIELD are all wearing black. They’re all carrying weapons that Steve can pick out under their jackets. They all look tense, annoyed.

Then there are the other three people. A short, slim man wearing a very tight suit and holding a paper bag and a white to-go coffee cup. Next to him is a disheveled looking man who is watching the SHIELD agents with extreme distrust. The third is a tall, angular woman with very close shorn dark hair wearing a pale yellow dress and looking awkward in it. She reminds Steve of a fawn, long skinny limbs, uncertain in its body.

“Morning.” Steve says when he’s close enough to not have to yell.

“Good morning, Captain Rogers.” The short man speaks first. Steve is surprised, having expected security to handle it. “I’m Tad Weatherby. We’re here to see Miss Lewis.”

“Why?” Steve asks, having found in the past that going direct often revealed quite a bit.

“Why?” The woman repeats, blinking rapidly.

“This is Dr. Hannah Rivers and Dr. Patrick White.” Mr. Weatherby says, not missing a beat. “Miss Lewis is a person of value at Stark Industries. We have come to see that she is well cared for and to bring her communications from the office, coffee, and her breakfast.”

“He wont hand over the bag.” Agent Brandt twitches towards the smaller man..

“You will _not_ touch Miss Lewis’ breakfast!” Weatherby blurts, shifting the bag farther from the agent with a shudder.

“Oh no.” The woman says softly, her eyes going wide, peering past Steve.

“Miss Lewis!” Weatherby gasps.

“Is that for me? Tad, tell me it is.” Darcy is walking gingerly towards them in a long linen robe and a pair of too-large house shoes. Steve has no idea where she found them.

“Of course, Miss Lewis.” Tad shifts around Steve with a look that suggests he doesn’t want to get anything on his pristine suit.

The two doctors follow in his wake, the woman curling a protective arm around the disheveled man who still wont take his eyes off the SHIELD agents.

“They can come in.” Darcy says and Steve barely holds back a flinch when he actually looks at her. The side of her face is one giant bruise. Her cheek is swollen. Her eye is blacked. “And look! It’s Charles and Oliver and AJ! Guys!”

“Good morning, Miss Lewis.” One of the men replies, looking severe.

“Aw, Charles. Come on, let’s go inside. It kinda hurts to stand.”

“Captain Rogers?” Agent Brandt’s tone is questioning as they watch two of the security guys bracket Darcy on either side as Weatherby leads the way back towards the open front door.

“I’ve got it.” Steve jogs after the group. He doesn’t know any of these people, so he’s not going to pick SHIELD over Darcy’s judgement. He’s got no reason to.

Inside the house Weatherby leaves Darcy to be settled by the security guys, marching through the house authoritatively clutching the paper bag.

Steve is impressed when the other man returns shortly (enough for the size of the house) with food on a plate. It’s a quiche, a scone, and a small bowl of pink colored oatmeal.

“Cap, this is Tad, he’s the best. And these two are absolute geniuses with molecular science, Hannah and Patrick.” Darcy is curled into the couch with Hannah on one side and the severe security man on the other. “And this is Charles, don’t let his sourpuss face fool you, he’s super nice. And that’s Oliver and AJ.”

Steve nods at each introduction. He receives a small finger wave from Hannah, is ignored completely by Patrick who has taken a seat in a blue floral arm chair that looks terribly uncomfortable, no reaction from Charles, an eyebrow raise from Oliver and a head tip from AJ.

“Guys, this is Captain Rogers. He saved me and my science last night, so lets just cool it with the angry faces.” Darcy looks to Tad with a smile. “What is that? Oh my gods, how did you do this?”

“The cafeteria made it for you when they heard what happened. We also have a video message for you and a few gifts.” Tad says. He gives Steve an unimpressed look. “Patrick snuck them in for us.”

Patrick stands up and unbuttons his shirt. It has little dancing robots on it. Steve realizes the man doesn’t actually have a paunch and wonders how in the hell a belt and a few shirts fooled six SHIELD agents and a veteran soldier.

“More tasers?!” Darcy exclaims happily around a mouthful of quiche.

“Modified. Anna and Laura worked all night.” Patrick speaks for the first time. He has a much deeper voice than expected.

Darcy cries when they play her a video. It appears to have started in a large cafeteria. What has to be close to a hundred voices yell ‘Hi Miss Lewis’ and it sends Darcy into tears.

The camera is then carried through various hallways with people waving and calling well wishes. Some even offer a safe place to stay.

Darcy finishes eating and holds out hands towards Weatherby, making grabbing motions with her fingers.

She is immediately supplied with a stack of blue, sparkling sticky notes and offered six pens. She writes her message one letter per square. _Thank you. Love, Darcy._

“Can you take care of this for me Tad?”

“Of course Miss Lewis.” Weatherby seems to puff up a little. “And I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”

“You don’t have to.”

“We’ll be back.” Charles says firmly. “But would you like us to leave you to rest for now?”

“What?” Patrick frowns.

“Maybe. I think I need to take some more pain pills, and those things knock me out.”

“Can we help you with anything before we leave, Miss Lewis?” Weatherby sets a pile of notes on the coffee table, the papers all different sized. The top one says _Lab 23 Misses You_ inside of a heart.

“No. This was awesome guys. Seriously, thank you so much.” Darcy looks down at the coffee cup she clutches in her lap. “It really means a lot to me.”

Hannah awkwardly pats Darcy’s arm, and Darcy gives her a tremulous smile. Steve finds himself wanting to push Hannah off the couch and actually comfort her.

“It’s okay guys.” She reassures them as they reluctantly get up to leave her with Steve. “It’s Captain America, right? Would he lie?”

And Steve feels like he’d been kicked by a horse. One of the huge ones that had been around on the farms in Austria hauling supplies when there weren’t enough trucks to go around.

They take their trash with them, leaving a three tasers of varying sizes on the side table, a Starkpad, and a knife one of the security guys had given her.

“They seem like good friends.” Steve says, feeling a little thrown. She’d always said she was so lonely. Then again, she had seemed genuinely surprised by their presence and the gifts and messages they’d brought.

But Darcy’s head is tipped back and her expression is strained.

“I’ll grab your medicine and some water.” Steve tells her.

She takes them and almost immediately after her eyelids are drooping.

“I wanna stay here.” She slurs suddenly, looking up at him with big blue eyes that he seen on a screen hundreds of times. Her Instagram pictures, her Facebook account. “Hurts to lay down.”

“Okay.” Steve agrees and she frowns, brows puckering. Then her eyelids sink again and lose the battle to raise.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve putters around the house. Pepper and Tony had it cleaned and readied for habitation during his flight over.

It seemed like a lot of work for just a few days. The kitchen has been stocked with food, the fridge is full of plenty of fresh produce, milk, juice and eggs. Hesitantly Steve finds the bedroom he’d stayed in a few nights during the war.

Bucky had been just next door to him. Steve had heard him through the walls, having a nightmare. He’d gone in and crawled in with Buck the second night. They were used to sleeping tight anyway.

In his room he’d propped a picture of Peggy up on the night stand. There had been a shoe shine kit. Outside the window, yes. It’s still there. The fountain is empty, but it remains.

There is art hanging in the room that hadn’t been there before, and more leaning against the walls. It’s that way in most of the areas Steve has been through, so he assumes the London house has been serving as storage for a while.

In the closet he finds the desktop radio he’d used and something about it does it for him. Seeing that tuner knob that he’d twisted so carefully, looking for updates about the front. Missing Peggy. He sits on the end of the bed, hands over his face.

It feels like he’s there now. It was only a few years ago, that he was here. That Peggy was somewhere out there, making her way to him. That Bucky was next door. That the radio was on the desk, filling the room with static and a slow song.

Now the radio is shoved in the closet, forgotten and Peggy and Bucky are gone, and Steve’s still here.

No. That’s wrong. The problem is that most of the time, it seems like they’re still there. How do you get your brain, your heart to understand seventy years passing in the blink of an eye? So some part of him believes they’re still there, and he’s just gotten lost somehow.

Back then Dum Dum had come in out of the rain with an update. He’d been soaked but had insisted on sitting out on Stark’s covered patio smoking a fat cigar while he ate a sandwich the kitchen put together for him.

Steve is half surprised one of his new team hasn’t shown up yet. Tony and Clint are bad at waiting. He’s pretty sure Nat’s five days is gonna end up being more like three.

Steve straightens, rubs his face with his hands. He’s still here, but he’s not alone. He’s got the team, apparently his friends. He’s got take out with Tony down in the lab, sparring with Nat in the gym. Trying to make it to the coffee pot before Clint gets there and drinks straight out of carafe.

Darcy downstairs, possibly awake and moving around again.

Steve shuts the door behind him, and that feels good. Really good. He chuckles at himself, thinking if that was all it took to feel like he’d get a tiny bit of closure, he should have had Tony fly him across the ocean sooner.

But he knows it’s not just the familiar house around him, that room. It’s a year and a half of adjusting. It’s the team settling in. It’s Darcy’s emails and texts, chimes on his phone. Finally feeling like maybe he belonged here.

 **Natasha** : 2:02 PM  
_If your digital pen pal is Darcy Lewis, Clint would appreciate a text or call, he’s worried about her_.

Steve stumbles.

 **Natasha** : 2:02 PM  
_Attack team in custody. AIM. They were after Foster’s equipment and someone who could work it. SHIELD can’t tell if anything is missing._

 **Steve:** 2:03 PM  
_Jane Foster, Thor’s girlfriend?_

 **Natasha** : 2:03 PM  
_You know he prefers the term consort. Do I take this to mean that you didn’t know who she was?_

 **Natasha** : 2:03 PM  
_You didn’t. She didn’t know who you were either, did she?_

Steve grimaces.

 **Natasha** : 2:03 PM  
_You are ridiculous. And adorable._

Steve texts as quickly as he can, jabbing the send button.

 **Steve:** 2:04 PM  
_Don’t tell Tony._

 **Natasha:** 2:04 PM  
_Too late._

 **Tony** : 2:04 PM  
_Tell me you recorded it when she found out._

 **Steve:** 2:05 PM  
_Can you have a little respect for the seriousness of the situation? She was attacked and Dr. Fosters work has been made vulnerable._

 **Natasha** : 2:05 PM  
_You haven’t told her yet, have you?_

 **Clint:** 2:05 PM  
_Seriously????????_

He turns his phone off and shoves it into his pocket.

Steve takes the stairs two at a time and finds the blanket he’d covered her with abandoned on the couch. Her empty to-go cup remains on the side table. The smallest taser is gone.

Steve feels his heart rate climb. Did she leave? Would the SHIELD agents stop her?

“Mother fucker!”

Steve stops still for a millisecond at the curse, her voice cutting through the house. Then he’s jogging in that direction, towards the kitchen.

She’s standing in the middle of a puddle of milk. The plastic gallon is on its side and emptied out.

“Well? Are you going to save me, Captain?” She asks irritably.

“Here.” Steve holds out his arms. She looks at him doubtfully but reaches for him, letting out a quiet ‘eep’ when he lifts her. She manages to grab a towel off the counter and he carries her to the table, depositing her in a chair. “I’ll clean that up.”

She nods, frowning down at her dripping bare feet. She bends to wipe at them with the towel and Steve gets to work soaking up the spilled milk. A bowl of Spangles cereal sits on the counter.

Of course Tony had the place stocked with Spangles. Of course. Steve can’t bite back his smile and shakes his head. Maybe he should text Tony about it later? No, a picture. A selfie of Steve enjoying his Spangles.

“Want me to make you something? How about an omelette? Or bacon and eggs?” Steve offers over his shoulder. It takes four towels, but he’s got the floor cleaned. It just means they don’t have milk until it can be replaced. He’ll message Jarvis.

“Darcy?” Steve tosses the soaked towels into the sink and turns to face her.

She’s pale and staring back at him with wide eyes.

“Darcy?” Steve comes closer, concerned. “Do you need more medicine? They said to take it as needed, and it’s been long enough…” He trails off because her eyes close and she holds up a hand.

“You knew about old European radiators.” She says, opening her eyes again. She looks sad, then she shakes her head and laughs bitterly. “I promised them Captain America wouldn’t lie.”

Realization hits him like a punch to the gut. He thinks his heart actually stops. Because Darcy is important. She’s so important.

She tips her head down, her face hidden by her dark hair.

“Darcy, I’m sorry.” Steve says, even though he knows it’s not enough. His heart wrenches when she lifts her head again and there are tears on her cheeks, dripping from her eyes. “It was an accident, the best accident, and then I didn’t want to tell you and change things, and then I did want to tell you but I didn’t know how, and I waited too long. It’s the story of my life really, but please believe me, I meant nothing by it.”

She’s bruised and crying in front of him, and he’s standing in front of her at a complete loss. He should say something, he’s sure of it, but words never come when he needs them, and this time is no different.

“Can I have a hug?” She asks tremulously.

He practically yanks her out of the chair and has to remind himself that she’s hurt. She curls around him, into him and he obliges her and wraps himself around her.

Hell, obliges her? He’s actually shaking, a delayed response to how he found her. The woman who had smiled at him from hundreds of selfies sent across the Atlantic, who had laughed at his jokes, who’s warm voice had talked him through nightmares and shitty movies and long days, he found her bleeding and afraid.

“You are a lying liar who lies, Grant Eyesman.” She says, burrowing her face into his neck and pulling her arms tighter around him.

“Steve. Please, _please_ , call me Steve.”

“Been holding that in for a while, _Steve_?” Her voice is muffled and soft.

Steve sighs as his muscles relax and he lets himself sink into her. “You have no idea.”

“So you’re finally going to cook for me? Awesome sauce.”

“Is that a hint?” Steve asks, discreetly inhaling her scent.

“Master tactician my ass. Cook food for me, Steve. That clear enough for you?”

He actually has to hide a shudder at the sound of her voice saying his name. God, how many times had he wished for that sound when they were on the phone? When she’d squeal out _Grant!_ when they were watching something, when he’d nag her too much and she’d groan _Grannnnnnt_.

“Yes ma’am.” Steve responds, on auto-pilot while his brain gets back on track. She leans back and beams at him. He can’t help but smile back. “Egg sandwich it is. Avocado. Ham. Poached egg.”

“Stahhhp. You’ll make me drool.” She steps back and he reluctantly drops his arms, lecturing himself mentally about scaring her off, but then she jumps at him and he reflexively catches. “Put me on the counter. I want to watch.”

“Yes ma’am.”

She looks just as delighted as she had the first time he said it.

"Hey, whats with the Eyesman thing?"

"Tony did it. He thought it was funny. And if you don't get it, I'm not telling you."

"What?" Darcy grabs his hand. "Not even a hint?"

"Say it out loud, a few times fast. But that's it." Steve shakes his head, a little distracted by her touch. "It's stupid."

They're eating, and she's showing him filters on her phone for his food pictures when his phone chimes loudly, the alert for when Tony over-rides it. Steve groans, because he has to check it. It could be Avengers related.

 **Pepper** : 2:47 PM

_You're with Darcy Lewis? Of the Lewis Method?_

 

 


End file.
